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Office for Institutional Diversity

REPORT

New diversity initiatives

OID's coordinated effort to collaborate with the vice presidents and deans to enhance diversity across campus has kicked off in earnest with a pilot program involving the Division of Student Affairs, the Office of University Advancement, and the Graduate School of Social Work. These organizations were asked to prepare a report that included diversity goals, related action plans, and measures of success in addressing their diversity structure, climate, practice, and policy.

Other organizations across the University will be asked to follow suit. One objective of this effort is to establish a set of diversity-related initiatives across the University that are tailored to the needs of and opportunities within the organizations that launch them. OID will provide general support, supplying workforce data and consultation as needed. We hope that what we learn from this exercise will eventually facilitate the establishment of a strategic diversity direction for the entire University.

Affinity Groups

OID continued to work closely with seven University affinity groups: Asian Pacific Islander Employees (APIE); Black Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association (BFSAA); the Council of AHANA Faculty (CAF@BC); Latino/as at Boston College (L@BC); the Lesbian and Gay Faculty, Staff and Administrators Association (LGFSAA); the Women’s Collaborative; and the Staff Advisory Senate. The office provided financial, logistical, and staff assistance to each group, helping to organize public events (such as the MLK Unity Breakfast) and facilitating efforts to increase communication between individual affinity groups and other campus entities (such as coordinating periodic affinity group roundtable meetings).

OID also enlisted the support of affinity groups for its own activities, seeking group members’ participation in Boston College’s Diversity Advisory Committee (recently reestablished) and the steering committee for the University Affiliates Program, among many others. Affinity group members took part in OID’s annual Community Building Luncheon, which welcomes new AHANA hires to the University and encourages their participation in staff and faculty affinity groups.

Judy Ferres (left) and Edilma Hosein (right) of the Office for Institutional Diversity with KimDuyen Ngo of Human Resources at OID's community building lunch

Administrative Program Review (APR)

OID completed its Administrative Program Review (APR) external review and developed an action plan comprising seven goals: continue to develop diversity strategies, clarify the respective roles of the Diversity Steering Committee, Diversity Advisory Committee, and OID; improve diversity representation and climate among BC faculty and staff; create a campus-wide communications strategy to promote a more consistent and accurate understanding of diversity issues across campus and ensure that OID's accomplishments are more widely known; improve coordination of student-related diversity matters; improve coordination with the Office of the Provost and other key stakeholders to increase recruitment and retention of diverse faculty; and conduct a University-wide follow-up climate study.

Collaboration with the Office of the Provost

OID has formalized and strengthened its relationship with the Office of the Provost during the past two academic years. Representatives of each office now meet regularly to discuss issues of mutual interest and concern. The two worked together to improve electronic tracking of faculty applicant demographic data and to include part-time faculty in the annual Affirmative Action Plan. (Persons of color are underrepresented among this segment of the faculty, which is approximately the same size as the cohort of tenure-track faculty at the University.)

Community Outreach/Communication

The Office for Institutional Diversity has bolstered its ongoing outreach and communications efforts, establishing a formal relationship with the Office of Marketing Communications. That office now works with the OID executive director and staff on an electronic newsletter, a redesigned website, and a yearly update on our progress.